Posted on 06/16/2012 11:10:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
acing that test is like acing any other test. you tailor your study parameters until you reach close to the test parameters and then you succeed. It is not a measure of intelligence at that point.
x=bat
y=ball
x+y=110
y=x-100
x+x-100=110
2x-100=110
2x=110+100
2x=210
x=105 bat
x+y=ball
y=x-100
y=105-100
y=5 ball
My first impulse was to do as the writer suggested and assign 100 to the bat and 10 to the ball...’till I worked the math. Boy did I feel stupid. And this is pretty much the extent of my algebra skills...sorry to say!
No need to go through all those permutations. You’ve already subtracted $1 from the total, leaving 10¢; therefore whatever the smaller price is, the larger price is $1 larger, $1.05 being $1 larger than 5¢. Just a riddle to throw people’s thinking off, like “Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?” or “What’s the opposite of ‘Not In’?” (some people will answer “Out” when caught off-guard; sharp-minded people will answer “Not out”). Math that really gives me headaches is (in calculus) trigonometric substitution and integration by parts; the reason I mentioned physical chemistry earlier in this thread is because AFAICS, far more advanced math is needed to learn it (differential equations and beyond), but many colleges require only calculus II and math beyond that is merely elective according to the degree program . . .
I had some good friends who were members of Mensa. I helped them in a small way to put on a colloquium/workshop involving Mensans from all over.
At the beginning of the conference, they split up into several different working groups, each one tasked to address the solutions to a specific World Problem, and then present their findings to the general session at the end.
It was like the Brightest Kids In The Room rolling up their (intellectual!) sleeves and digging right in on that nasty problem of overpopulation, or war, or messing up the environment. They came up with solutions, you betcha!
Scarcely a thread connecting them to the real world, of course.
Just do a system of equations. Let x = ball and y = bat. Now:
y = x + 1
x + y = 1.10
Subtract x from both sides of the first equation to give you: -x + y = 1, and then add this equation to the second equation:
-x + y = 1
x + y = 1.10
—
2y = 2.10
Solve for y:
y = 1.05
Plug the y value back into one of the equations to solve for x:
x + 1.05 = 1.10
x = 1.10 - 1.05
x = .05
You can be smart, but you can’t be both.
After reading the posts first, I have saved myself the bother of reading what I expect is a really stupid article. Thank you all. :-)
Yep - I grew up using the simple "tricks". Like adding the integers 1 through 100 in a hurry. (1+100=101 50 X 101=5050)
The Eye cannot See Itself
Reason cannot study Itself
For this is Given an External Perspective
Ask to See through God's Eyes
He will Open Yours
Just wow. Why did I read that? Not only did I read it, but I read it to my husband.
I joined Mensa in my twenties based on an IQ test result when I was twelve. The meetings consisted of overeducated & underemployed/unemployed geeks dissing on Republicans and celebrating the virtues of their small cramped uncomfortable cars and/or apartments.
Mensa chicks tended to prove El Rushbo’s undeniable truth of life concerning the feminist movement.
After I learned to think for myself I let the membership lapse. Life does not require high intelligence in order for it to be successful and meaningful.
The New Yorker used to have some great cartoons but that’s decades gone. Nowadays it reads like the Daily Worker.
The article was so much stupid as superficially “smart.” Typical for The New Yorker. In the end, it tells you nothing.
Q is 15; T is 8
Was it Voltaire who said something to the effect that men resort to reason, only when impulse and intuition have failed?
Of course, people who think the way "thinking" is described in the article, believe that the only reason anyone would vote against Obama is racism, and need never examine their assumptions. They are called Ivy Leaguers. BTW, Richard Feynmann was not so much brilliant, as stubborn, he got his Nobel be re-examining the assumptions of previous researchers. Einstein's son said that his father would never really strike you a brilliant in a conversation, but that his one distinguishing trait was the compunction to understand things for himself, not to take anyone else's word for anything.
The real story here is that there are two kinds of stupid: the common, “state of nature” variety and the superficially educated variety. In the latter case of course the impossibility of stupidity among the elect of the cognitive elite is an article of faith.
Intellectual laziness harnessed in the service of intellectual arrogance, are a dangerous combination.
marking
I was taught about algebraic systems of equations in the eighth grade. How smart do people have to be to retain elementary algebra?
Q=19, T=12
and the number one reason that some really smart people are stupid is.....
They will stay home on election day because Romney is not conservative enough or too liberal for them. Wake up and smell the coffee - would be better off with McCain right now? YES - NO QUESTION!
I’ll take a light republican over any amount of democrat - PERIOD. A light republican has flashes of brilliance where as a democrat has flashbacks and thinks that skittle pooping unicorns exist.
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